The US has inked a broad agreement at WSIS but that does not mean it relinquishes its influence over Internet operations

The Bush administration and its critics at a United Nations summit at Tunis in Tunisia have inked a broad agreement on global Internet management that will preclude any dramatic showdown this week.

By signing the statement, the Bush administration formally endorsed the creation of an "Internet Governance Forum" that will meet for the first time in 2006 under the auspices of the UN. The forum is meant to be a central point for global discussions of everything from computer security and online crime to spam and other "misuses of the Internet".

What the agreement does not do is require the US to relinquish its unique influence over the Internet's operations. The statement takes "no action regarding existing institutions", David Gross, the ambassador leading the US delegation, said on Wednesday. "It created no new international organisations."

The last-minute deal, reached just hours before the WSIS began on Wednesday, effectively postpones a long-simmering dispute over the future of Internet management. China, Cuba, South Africa and other nations have argued that the US and other wealthier nations must share power  complaints that now will be taken to the new UN forum.

"It is a matter of justice and legitimacy that all people must have a say in the way the Internet is governed," Luisa Diogo, the prime minister of Mozambique, told the thousands of delegates who have gathered in Tunisia's capital city.

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe offered a more ominous warning. The US and allies such as the UK unreasonably "insist on being world policemen on the management of the Internet", and that must change, Mugabe said.

At issue in this dispute is the unique influence the US government wields over the master list of top-level domain names  such as .com, .org and country codes including .uk and .jp  as a result of the network's historical origins. In addition, ICANN, the nonprofit organisation created by the Clinton administration to oversee day-to-day management is located in Marina del Rey, California

In June, the Bush administration announced it had no plans to relinquish its role as at least a symbolic guarantor of the stability of the Internet. A statement published at the time backed the current ICANN structure and said "no action" will be taken that could destabilise the Internet.

Over the last few months, the administration's envoys have found themselves increasingly isolated in preliminary meetings leading up to the Tunisia summit.

The European Union, for instance, implicitly backed the creation of a stronger UN body...

US endorses Internet Governance Forum

Declan McCullagh CNET News.com November 16, 2005, 14:40 GMT

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The US has inked a broad agreement at WSIS but that does not mean it relinquishes its influence over Internet operations

...that could even be granted regulatory powers. But as the official start of the summit on Wednesday neared, China and other critics chose to agree to the set of principles and instead take their complaints to the newly created UN forum during its first meeting next year that is expected to take place in Greece.

Vague principles for "forum" Because the principles adopted this week are so broad, nearly everyone involved in the discussions can boast a political victory.

The US stressed that the UN forum will have no regulatory power. "It will have no oversight function, (remain) non-operational and engage only in dialogue," Ambassador Gross said. We have "no concerns that it would morph into something unsavoury".

Gross also pointed to language in the agreement saying the forum should be "subject to periodic review"  meaning, he said, it will not become a permanent bureaucracy.

Also included in the broad principles: The forum shall "identify emerging issues, bring them to the attention of the relevant bodies and the general public", "facilitate discourse between bodies dealing with different crosscutting international public policies regarding the Internet" and discuss "issues relating to critical Internet resources".

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, on the other hand, said the agreement highlights "the need for more international participation in discussions of Internet governance issues. The question is how to achieve this. Let those discussions continue."

Annan acknowledged that the US has exercised its Internet oversight "fairly and honourably" but said that change has become necessary. The United Nations has no desire to "control or police the Internet", Annan added.

That stance seemed to be an effort to placate conservative groups and businesses, especially in the US, which are alarmed at what some view as the prospect of a thoroughly corrupt and unaccountable bureaucracy seizing control of Internet management. A report released this week by the National Taxpayers Union warned that "controlling Internet content while securing another income source through the United Nations seems an attractive policy outcome for politicians looking to suppress dissent and to prop-up financially ailing bureaucracies."

The CompTIA trade association has stressed that it supports a "market-based solutions" approach rather than expanded UN control. So have a roster of tech companies including Google, IBM and Microsoft and members of the US Senate and House of Representatives. One reason why businesses are alarmed is the lengthy list of suggestions that have been advanced in the past by nations participating in the UN process. Those include new mandates for "consumer protection", the power to tax domain names to pay for "universal access" and folding ICANN into a UN agency. The United Nations has previously suggested creating an international tax bureaucracy and once floated the idea of taxing email, saying in a report that a one cent tax on 100 email messages would be "negligible".

Violence before summit The lead-up to the WSIS has been marred by violence against journalists and human rights activists. French journalist Christophe Boltanski, who had arrived early to write about Tunisia President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's civil liberties record, was stabbed in an assault by four men and not aided by nearby police. The Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement that such attacks are characteristic of Tunisia's secret police.

In another incident, journalists and civil liberties activists planning their own summit on human rights were assaulted and detained by Tunisian police. In response, members of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange said they would pull out of the summit.

Human rights groups have warned for years that Ben Ali's autocratic regime has imprisoned and tortured political opponents and harassed full-time journalists and part-time online scribes.

This is sounding more and more like the Clinton administration, that never saw an international agreement it didn't sign. The nose of the globalist camel is under the tent. The US should not have even been at the meeting in Tunis, but should have sent them this message: It's OUR net.

...the Bush administration formally endorsed the creation of an "Internet Governance Forum" that will meet for the first time in 2006 under the auspices of the UN.

This can only be the first of many steps in bringing the internet under the control of those governments who suppress free speech as a matter of political policy. Eventually those restrictions on the net would find a home with our own politicians.

Also, suppression of the net would once again make the liberal MSM the gatekeepers of information. That can never be allowed to happen again.

13
posted on 11/16/2005 8:12:48 AM PST
by Noachian
(To Control the Judiciary The People Must First Control The Senate)

To those that think this is giving the internet to UN.... get a grip. This does nothing of the sort. All it does is set up a discussion group to make the international community feel empowered. They have no control and nothing they say at these meetings matter. These UN crybabies like their little forums so they have an excuse to leave whatever particular hellhole they live in and travel to Switzerland or whatever. It will be forgotten soon enough.

More honest to say: "Attempt to take over DNS relegated to harmless UN committee who will bicker endlessly and never be heard from again"

The only real danger is that a Dim majority and/or Dim president might enlarge this and turn over control of DNS to the UN later. Or succumb to global taxation via internet, although this is less likely since our domestic socialists mostly like to grab and keep the money for themselves.

There's a bill in the House, I think, that would codify U.S. control of DNS into U.S. law. I think the uppity DNS-grabbers backed down out of fear that their actions would ensure its passage. Hopefully, the sponsors will finish and pass the bill anyway.

Let the UN set up their own freakin' internet, and see how many people willingly subject themselves to its yoke. Seriously, set up a .un domain, and let the crooks administer it, and we'll see just how long it lasts and how much good it does. Otherwise, they need to STFU.

20
posted on 11/16/2005 8:19:39 AM PST
by SlowBoat407
(The best stuff happens just before the thread snaps.)

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